Now that Windows 8 has gone gold, Microsoft can move on to other things. With Windows 8, the most important of these is probably to make sure people know how to actually use it. Metro is filled to the brim with hard-to-discover features, but Microsoft has a plan. Will it be enough?

Doesn't matter, unless Microsoft had to refund the licence fee to all those users who did up/downgrade. At the end of the day, they don't really case what you do with your licenced copy of their OS, once you've paid them the money. Just like Coca-Cola wouldn't care if most people bought their drinks to pour down the toilet. They still got the sale.

Edit: So, in summary, Microsoft would be delighted if a few hundred million users bought Windows 8 licences, even if the vast majority deleted it straight away to replace it with 7.